Contretemps

Dear Rx: This is embarrassing, to say the least. You would probably say it is counter-intuitive. I mean my correspondence with you. My point by point correspondence, dense in the texts of my own writings to you. Have you been receiving all this? Are you getting it?

I have been watching you, through your words, your texts that are a kind of enigma squared. These texts, which themselves continuously point to mysteries beyond themselves, eXist in a conteXt that is dedicated to clarity. You must know the Florida Weekly tagline: "In the know; in the now." Your words are like bits of grit fallen into the treasure chest oyster of newsworthiness. Unknowable, and out of time.

You, me, and the Florida Weekly are triple counterpoint. You waving below; I cloudy above, and your words splayed between on the counter of the S.S. Florida Weekly, on the stern hull above water.

Let me tell you a story, under the counter.

In ancient Greece two fine artists challenged each other to a con test. Zeuxis painted a still life image so real that birds came down out of the sky to peck at its grapes. With the clear taste of victory in his mouth, he asked his rival Parrhasius to move back the old tattered curtain that hid his countering art. Parrhasius only laughed and claimed the victory. The hiding curtain was his counter feat.

Do you concede the victory? Or do you vainly, foolishly counter?

Pretty metaphysical for a bean counter,

MaX Origen

My dear MaX,

Allow me to put my counters in a row.

It is, all in all, minds the likes of yours that have pushed me to the max, settled me under permanent cover. Living in the mist of the sea, I have become fully awakened to the trompe l'oeil that some call the world.

What do you call it?

I, too, have a story to share. And like yours, mine is also counterfeit, the story of an other. This other is

Alan Watts, who also lived at times in his later years on the sea.

Alan was an only child who played with words referring to butterflies and wild flowers.

He was an Episcopalian priest, an adulterer, a Zen student who did not master the koan, a psychedelic imbiber, a writer and lecturer. Alan's closet was full of the masks of play.

This is his story: Since there was nothing and no

one outside, God had no one to play with. So God began to pretend to be rocks and rills, flowers and hills. And animals and people of all sizes and shapes and colors. And all universes, infinitely large and infinitely small. God pretends so well that there is a forgetting of the pretense. There is only the hiding-andseeking. The game is wonder full, a mazeing. Who knows when it will end?

All that reveals, conceals.

And God is too undercover to say that it is good.

Delightful encounter,

Rx

— Rx is the FloridaW eekly muse who hopes t o inspire profound mutiny in all those w ho care to read. Our Rx may b e wearing a pirate cloak of in visibility, bu t emanating fr om within this shadow is hope that r eaders will f eel free to respond. Who kno ws: You may even inspire the muse. Mak e contact if you dare.